(Mar 31, 2015)
In the third installment of this series looking at monitoring programs across industries, including healthcare, IT, finance, government and telecom, Deidre Rodriguez, CIPP/US, talks with JC Cannon, CIPP/US, CIPT, about monitoring a privacy program in the IT industry. "Having comprehensive rules, training and procedures in place are not as important during an audit as being able to prove that they are working," Cannon says. Cannon provides tips for those developing monitoring programs and highlights the pitfalls to watch for and how to address them—including through training. “Having great procedures and monitoring in place are a waste of time if employees aren’t aware of them and how to execute on them,” Cannon notes.
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(Mar 31, 2015)
Despite the controversy surrounding the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Net Neutrality Order, “it is consistent with several decades of FCC efforts to regulate facilities-based transmission providers in order to protect competition,” writes William Baker, CIPP/US, who has participated in many an FCC proceeding. In this first of a two-part series for Privacy Tracker, Baker outlines the important aspects of the Net Neutrality Order and talks about the FCC’s history in regulating information service access providers dating back to 1970 and the beginning of the Computer Inquiry proceedings. (IAPP member login required.)
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(Mar 31, 2015)
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to craft new rules that could limit broadband providers’ ability to share information about users’ web activity with advertisers, MediaPost reports. The FCC’s Wireline Competition and Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureaus will convene a workshop on the privacy rights of broadband users on April 28 in Washington, DC. The FCC said the 2015 Open Internet Order applies Section 222 of the Communications Act to broadband carriers, and has not...
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(Mar 31, 2015)
Harvard Berkman Fellow and Co3 CTO Bruce Schneier believes we now live in a mass surveillance society of our own making, as we've traded the data that allows us to be constantly tracked in exchange for convenience and services. But, he argues, we don't have to. In his new book, Data and Goliath, he offers suggestions for reforming surveillance-based business models and the systems of government surveillance and offers consumers ways to step outside surveillance culture. In this video of a recent discussion at the Berkman Center, Schneier explores these themes with Berkman Cofounder Jonathan Zittrain and Co-Director Yochai Benkler, former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government Joe Nye, Berkman Fellow Sara Watson and cybersecurity advisor Melissa Hathaway.
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(Mar 31, 2015)
According to the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) annual compliance report released Monday, all 92 of its members “substantially complied” with the NAI’s consumer privacy code in 2014, KatyontheHill reports. The code requires ad networks to post data collection and retention practices and give consumers the option to opt out of tracking. The NAI says the minor code violations were unintentional and were “resolved quickly.” The ad network industry considers self-regulatory programs like this to be “an important tool in beating back regulation from the Hill,” the report states.
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(Mar 31, 2015)
A newly released report commissioned by the Belgian Data Protection Agency has revealed that Facebook tracks the web-browsing of everyone who uses the social network—including those without accounts or who have opted out of tracking—as well as sites that include Facebook social plug-ins, The Guardian reports. Researchers from the Centre of Interdisciplinary Law and ICT and the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography department at the University of Leuven as well as the media, i...
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(Mar 31, 2015)
Tribune News Service reports that New Mexico will not become the newest U.S. state with a data breach notification law after the Senate Judiciary Committee twice voted not to send the proposed bill to the floor. New Mexico is currently one of three U.S. states without data breach laws. The state’s House had unanimously approved the bill in February, and another state Senate committee also unanimously approved it earlier in March. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. William Rehm (R-Albuquerque), said, “The comments appeared to be it was too industry-friendly for the attorneys on the committee.”
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(Mar 31, 2015)
In a column for The Washington Post, Steptoe & Johnson Partner Stewart Baker writes that the new information-sharing bill—now called the Protecting Cyber Networks Act—adopted by the House Intelligence Committee could actually deter information-sharing. “I fear that the House bill is indeed seriously flawed, but not because it invades privacy,” he writes. “Instead, it appears to pile unworkable new privacy regulations on the private-sector information-sharing that’s already going ...
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(Mar 31, 2015)
The White House has said it will take steps to protect the personal information of President Barack Obama after an errant email was sent from an Australian official to organizers of the Asian Cup soccer tournament, The Guardian reports. Earlier this week, an official at the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection mistakenly leaked passport and visa details of all of the G20 world leaders. White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz said the administration is “looking into”...
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(Mar 31, 2015)
PCWorld reports that frequent flier accounts of British Airways customers may have been compromised by hackers. According to one email message allegedly from the airline and posted in a user forum, the company “has become aware of unauthorized activity,” adding, “This appears to have been the result of a third party using information obtained elsewhere on the Internet, via an automated process, to try to gain access to your Executive Club account.” Additionally, the company has changed affected users’ passwords and suspended the use of its frequent flier club.
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